Welcome to my third and final monthly recap of my 2015 “Picking the Winners” Pac-12 preview (which has appeared annually on USCFootball.com for the past decade or so). My first two recaps appeared on Sept. 30 (covering September results) and Nov. 5 (covering October results). If you missed my picks in the feature story, here’s the link:

My November mark of 18-7 (including the Pac-12 Championship game) left my overall record for the season at 67-25 (.728), matching my 2014 mark. Not counting the Pac-12 title game — which I include as a loss, since I had Oregon (not Stanford) beating USC (hmm, on second thought, should I count the North champ over USC as a win?) — half of my defeats came at the hands of a Washington State team that closed out a surprising 8-4 season. Before taking a look at the season overall, let’s see how things shook out in November — my best picks, worst picks, and how my preseason expectations for each team compared with the reality.

Week 10

Best Picks

USC over Arizona (picked 42-27; actual 38-30)

Oregon over California (picked 57-28; actual 44-28)

Worst Pick

Arizona State over Washington State, 41-31 (actual: Washington State 38, Arizona State 24)

Washington over Utah, 22-20 (actual: Utah 34, Washington 23)

A 4-2 week was marred by, of course, Washington State’s home win against the Sun Devils — after falling behind 14-0 early — and Utah‘s victory over Washington. My best picks of the week narrowly missed being even better, as the Trojans (picked by 15 over Arizona) allowed a meaningless late touchdown after leading, 38-23. And while Oregon allowed 28 points to California (as predicted), the Ducks’ offense was still finding its way a bit.

For the fourth time in 2015, I enjoyed a one-loss week, going 5-1. Unsurprisingly, it was the Cougars who kept me from my first perfect week of the season when they scored with three seconds to play at UCLA. Among the five winners, Oregon’s “upset” at Stanford was perhaps the most surprising after how the season’s first 10 weeks had played out. Meanwhile, my pick of Cal scoring 50+ in a blowout over Oregon State came true, and I missed the correct margin by just five points in Arizona State‘s win against the Huskies.

The weekend of Nov. 21 tied for my toughest of the season (3-3). Incredibly, I picked the week’s marquee matchup (Oregon-USC) and two rivalry games (the Territorial Cup and the Big Game) correctly, while failing on what seemed to be less attractive games . The Beavers continued to somehow be worse than I imagined. And Washington State’s demolition of Colorado toppled one of my preseason upset picks.

Week 13

Best Picks

California over Arizona State (picked 45-42; actual 48-46)

Utah over Colorado (picked 31-19; actual 20-14)

Worst Pick

Washington over Washington State, 28-27 (actual: Washington, 45-10)

I never would have imagined that my only perfect week of 2015 would coincide with the last full slate of the year — especially considering the number of rivalry games, what became a huge Stanford-Notre Dame matchup, and a back-and-forth shootout in Berkeley. But not only did I go 6-0 — meaning that I ended up picking all five traditional conference rivalry outcomes correctly in 2015 — but I also just missed the final score in Cal’s “Pac-12 After Dark” win over ASU.

Honestly, after what the Trojans faced during the first month-and-a-half of the 2015 campaign, I’m as stunned as you are that I picked the South Division champion correctly.

November Expectations vs. Reality

With six incorrect picks in regular season games, once again there’s plenty of shakeup when looking at my expectations for each squad. As usual, let’s start from the Pacific Northwest and head down the coast before curling back inland.

Washington State: Final record — 8-4, 6-3; preseason prediction — 3-9, 1-8 (sixth in North). Variance: lost vs. Portland State; won at Rutgers; won at Oregon; won at Arizona; won vs. Arizona State; won at UCLA; won vs. Colorado.

USC: Final record — 8-5, 6-3; preseason prediction — 10-3, 7-2 (first in South). Variance: lost vs. Stanford; won at Arizona State; lost vs. Washington; lost at Notre Dame.

Utah: Final record — 9-3, 6-3; preseason prediction — 7-5, 4-5 (fifth in South). Variance: won at Oregon; won vs. Arizona State; won at Washington; lost vs. UCLA.

UCLA: Final record — 8-4, 5-4; preseason prediction — 8-4, 5-4 (fourth in South). Variance: won at Arizona; lost vs. Arizona State; lost vs. Washington State; won at Utah.

Arizona State: Final record — 6-6, 4-5; preseason prediction — 8-4, 6-3 (second in South). Variance: lost vs. USC; won at UCLA; lost at Utah; lost at Washington State.

Arizona: Final record — 6-6, 3-6; preseason prediction — 8-4, 5-4 (third in South). Variance: lost vs. UCLA; won at Colorado; lost vs. Washington State; lost at Washington.

Colorado: Final record — 4-9, 1-8; preseason prediction — 6-7, 2-7 (sixth in North). Variance: lost at Hawaii; lost vs. Arizona; won at Oregon State; lost at Washington State.

In the North, I was two points from picking California’s entire season correctly. Yes, I picked Texas to beat Cal by a point — but it was the Bears who pulled off a 45-44 win, saddling me with my only incorrect selection on the Berkeley schedule. Additionally, I missed only two outcomes each on the schedules of North stalwarts Stanford and Oregon.

Unsurprisingly, my worst set of results featured Washington State, which I picked to finish in the North cellar. I failed in picking seven of the Cougs’ 12 outcomes, but one of those has to be on them — their season-opening loss to FCS-level Portland State.

Intriguingly, I had exactly four incorrect selections for all six South Division clubs, while picking the division winner (USC) correctly. However, with some minor shuffling behind the Trojans, I correctly picked five South squads for bowl eligibility.

Welcome to my second monthly recap of my 2015 “Picking the Winners” Pac-12 preview (which has appeared annually on USCFootball.com for the past decade or so). My first recap, on Sept. 30, covered September’s results. And I’ll take a complete look back in a post-season, pre-bowl overview in December. If you missed my picks in the feature story, here’s the link:

My October mark of 17-9, upped my overall record for the season to 49-18 (.731). Arizona‘s struggles and USC‘s upheaval (and Washington taking advantage of both), along with Washington State‘s emergence were my main nemeses. Let’s see how things shook out — my best picks, my worst picks, and how my preseason expectations for each team compared with the month’s reality.

Week 5

Best Pick

Oregon over Colorado (picked 54-24; actual 41-24)

Worst Pick

UCLA over Arizona State, 30-28 (actual: Arizona State 38, UCLA 23)

As we moved more completely into the conference season, the realities of this year’s teams start to really shake out vs. the expectations we were all working with before the season. So, though I picked three of four games correctly on the week of October 3, the closest I got to an actual score/margin was Oregon‘s 17-point win at Colorado — and even that score is affected by the Ducks’ struggles and Colorado’s improvement. In my other wins, I had Stanford beating Arizona by 17 (the Cardinal won by 38) and California by three TDs over Washington State (the six-point margin looked much less confusing by the end of October).

And, let’s be honest: that worst pick, my only loss on the week, was maybe more shocking after what led up to UCLA‘s match-up with Arizona State in Pasadena than it seemed before the season began. The Bruins were riding high at 4-0, and the Devils, at 2-2, were coming off a whipping in Tempe at the hands of USC. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This was a very Jekyll-and-Hyde week for me, as my three wins were all actually pretty solid picks in relation to final score and/or margin — led clearly by my choice of Utah in a tight home victory over Cal.

However, those two bad picks were on the “wow” level, as Oregon‘s early season slide merged with Washington State‘s continuing emergence in Eugene. Meanwhile, in one of the worst football games I’ve ever seen in person, a so-so Washington team outlasted seemingly disinterested USC on a Thursday night in L.A. Of course, with the upheaval in the USC program that came just days later, the Trojans’ performance seems less odd in retrospect.

Week 7

Best Picks

Washington State over Oregon State (picked 35-27; actual 52-31)

Stanford over UCLA (picked 34-24; actual 56-35)

Worst Picks

Arizona State over Utah, 33-27 (actual: Utah 34, Arizona State 18)

USC over Notre Dame, 38-28 (actual: Notre Dame 41, USC 31)

My worst week of the year so far (3-3) really showcased the changing realities in the 2015 season mentioned earlier. Washington State? Better than expected. Utah? Way up! Arizona State? Down. USC? In turmoil. Colorado? Not quite ready to pull the big upset. Stanford? Turning into a playoff contender. UCLA? Injuries destroying its defense.

Man, soooooo close on that UCLA–Cal pick! Getting so close on that one was a positive precursor to one of the better 3-2 weeks you can have. I had USC over Utah by 14 in preseason — and Utah over USC by 15 in my weekly preview for USCFootball.com. The Trojans, though, rose from their apparent collective grave to whip the stunned Utes and the final margin landed awfully close to my initial call. On the other end of the spectrum, Mike Leach’s Washington State club pulled off its latest road shocker, this time in Tucson — blowing my preseason choice right out of the water like a cannon-shot to a pirate ship.

Week 9

Best Picks

Utah over Oregon State (picked 33-17; actual 27-12)

USC over California (picked 42-34; actual 27-21)

Worst Pick

Arizona over Washington, 38-28 (actual: Washington 49, Arizona 3)

My best week of October was its final week, as I correctly picked five out of six outcomes. And, by margin of victory, I had two of my best choices of the season: Utah over Oregon State by 16 (final margin: 15) and USC over California by eight (final margin: six).

However, Washington really gave me my money’s worth out of that single loss: a 56-point swing from pick to reality, as the Huskies had their best performance of 2015 against a floundering Arizona club.

October Expectations vs. Reality

With nine incorrect picks, once again there’s plenty of shakeup when looking at my expectations for each squad vs. the reality. Let’s start from the Pacific Northwest and head down the coast before curling back inland.

Washington State (picked 1-4, 1-4 in Pac-12; reality 3-2, 3-2): Only a late Stanford comeback kept the resurgent Cougars from winning four of five in October.

Oregon State (picked 1-3, 1-3 in Pac-12; reality 0-4, 0-4):My only miss on Oregon State so far this season: picking them to beat Colorado at home. Instead, the Buffs broke a 14-game conference losing streak and a 13-game conference road losing streak.

Oregon (picked 4-0, 4-0 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 3-1):Another victim of surprising Washington State. The Ducks finished the month with a dramatic OT win at Arizona State. Can they ride the momentum from that through season’s end?

California (picked 1-3, 1-3 in Pac-12; reality 1-3, 1-3):I called for an October downturn for the Bears — and got all four of their games correct. My only mistake on Cal’s schedule remains picking a loss in its eventual one-point win at Texas.

USC (picked 4-0, 3-0 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 2-1 ):With the Sark episode mixed into the middle of one of the toughest stretches in USC’s schedule (@ Notre Dame, Utah, @ Cal), it’s no shock that the Trojans suffered a couple of unexpected losses. While there’s no shame losing in South Bend, Sark’s last game — the loss to Washington — was brutal.

Arizona State (picked 2-2, 2-2 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 2-2):Always fun to see the pick match the reality, isn’t it? No, it’s not. ASU’s stunner over UCLA was the hiccup, and by the time it rolled around, the Devils loss at Utah wasn’t much of a shock.

Arizona (picked 3-2, 3-2 in Pac-12; reality 2-3, 2-3):While I wasn’t exactly a buyer of the idea that Arizona would, once again, challenge for the South Division crown (see my preseason pick of Colorado over the Wildcats), I really didn’t expect them to fall to both of the Washington schools.

Colorado (picked 1-4, 1-4 in Pac-12; reality 1-4, 1-4): Like ASU, the matching results reflect a pair of misses. That will happen when you try to hand-pick the right “upset” (in this case, over Arizona — which didn’t happen) for a team that’s struggled for years.

Though I keep track, weekly, of my game-by-game picks from my annual “Picking the Winners” Pac-12 preview (which has appeared annually on USCFootball.com for the past decade or so), it’s been a few years since I offered readers a regular recap and progress report. To rectify that, I’ll be providing three updates this season — this one, recapping the month of September; a second that will take a look at October outcomes; and, finally, a post-season, pre-bowl overview. If you missed my picks in the feature story, here’s the link:

I finished the first month with a solid 32-9 mark. Only two completely inexplicable non-conference upsets and last weekend’s stunning Utah rout of Oregon in Eugene — an outcome nobody saw coming — kept me from a fantastic start. Let’s see how things shook out — my best picks, my worst picks, and how my pre-season expectations for each team compare with the current reality.

Let’s talk about the worst picks here. I mean, wow — it’s embarrassing enough that Washington State has a team like Portland State on its schedule, but scrambling for a fourth-quarter tie before losing in the closing moments at home? The loss dwarfs the other two disappointments.

Stanford embarrassed itself in Evanston, Ill., against Northwestern. The Cardinal’s (premature) 2015 obituary was written many times over in the week following this loss. And while Colorado‘s defeat here was probably the least shocking of the three, anyone who stayed up late enough on the season’s first Thursday night to watch even the first half of this game knows just what a frightful performance this was by both the Buffaloes and the Warriors.

In easily my most solid week of September, even my worst pick — aforementioned Washington State, which bounced back from the embarrassment against Portland State to go on the road and beat a troubled Rutgers team they’d lost to in Seattle last season — was close to on the money. You could even make a case that my worst pick was a 51-21 predicted blowout by Arizona State over FCS Cal Poly — in a game that was deadlocked at 21 into the fourth quarter before the Sun Devils scored two late TDs.

On the other hand, those best picks are all something to behold. Perhaps the most difficult thing to do in picking games like this is coming close to the actual scores in should-be blowouts. So, those scores in the Michigan, UCLA, and USC victories are all rather pleasing.

Interestingly, one of my worst picks also was one of my best picks. In a shootout in Austin, I took Texas to win a one-point nail biter. Really, in a shootout in Austin, Cal won a one-point nail biter when the Longhorns missed a late PAT that likely would have spelled overtime.

Remember Stanford’s obituary? Neither did they, as they simply wore down USC in the second half at the Coliseum. This matchup has been up, down, and all around in recent seasons — and with a number of close margins, it’s often anybody’s guess as to which team will come out on top. After the Cardinal’s early misstep at Northwestern, not many gave them a chance against the Trojans. Many were wrong.

Week 4

Best Pick

California over Washington (picked 39-28; actual 30-24)

Worst Picks

Arizona over UCLA, 27-20 (actual: UCLA 56, Arizona 30)

Arizona State over USC, 35-28 (actual: USC 42, Arizona State 14)

Oregon over Utah, 48-20 (actual: Utah 62, Oregon 20)

I mean, you see those worst pick scores. Whew. At best, before the season, I’d have said UCLA and USC, with the right breaks, could win close ones in the desert — while it would take a lot of breaks for Utah to pull a last-minute upset in Eugene. So much for those ideas. It looks like the Ducks might be going through an “end of the mystique” season, much like USC did in 2009 — Oregon’s offensive injuries and troubled defense don’t remind anyone of its recent dominant squads. In the meantime, it’s clear that the Pac-12 South is staking its claim as the conference’s best division.

September Expectations vs. Reality

With nine incorrect picks, including four in Pac-12 conference games, there’s some shakeup when looking at my expectations for each squad vs. the reality. Let’s start from the Pacific Northwest and head down the coast before curling back inland.

Washington (picked 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12): One of two teams in the conference for which I’ve picked the right outcome each week.

Washington State (picked 2-1; reality 2-1): Same record, two miscues that were both covered earlier — the loss to Portland State and the victory at Rutgers.

Oregon State (picked 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12):The other team in the conference that I’ve nailed all four picks for this far.

Oregon (picked 3-1, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12):So far, I’ve only gotten that Utah pick incorrect — but the way the Ducks are playing, quite a few more miscues could be on the way.

California (picked 3-1, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12):That Texas win not only foiled my pick, but also should make Cal’s bowl eligibility a cinch.

Stanford (picked 3-1, 1-1 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 2-0 in Pac-12):The Cardinal went from written off to the class of the North — in a three-week span. The Northwestern outcome is the one that really stings me, though.

UCLA (picked 3-1, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12):Not only did the Bruins’ win at Arizona place them aside Utah atop the early race in the South, it also wrecked my perfect record with them.

USC (picked 3-1, 1-1 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 1-1 in Pac-12):Looks good, right? I mean, as a Trojan, I’ll take it (after that Stanford performance). But, purely from a selection standpoint, the Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect of this team in recent years continues unabated, leaving me with a 2-2 mark.

Arizona State (picked 3-1, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 2-2, 0-1 in Pac-12):I wasn’t buying the Sun Devils in that opener against Texas A&M in Houston, but I did think they’d be better than Arizona this season. After falling on their faces against USC last week, it’s anyone’s guess.

Arizona (picked 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12; reality 3-1, 0-1 in Pac-12):That UCLA destruction — my lone miscue — plus injuries to Anu Solomon and Scooby Wright seem to have the Wildcats season hanging in the balance during the next few weeks.

Utah (picked 3-1, 0-1 in Pac-12; reality 4-0, 1-0 in Pac-12):After performing to standard in the season’s opening weeks — grinding out home wins with defense and just enough offense against Michigan and Utah State — the Utes have exploded on the national scene. Are they this good? Is Oregon that bad? We will find out.